Jazzpunk Reviews
Debates still go on as to whether video games have had their Citizen Kane moment, but with Jazzpunk we can at least rest easy knowing that games have had their Naked Gun moment.
In all likelihood, you won't see everything that Jazzpunk has to offer the first time around. There are zingers tucked away in every nook-and-cranny that will only reveal themselves to you if you want them to. In so many cases, you are the key to the punchline. Without you, the clever quips stay hidden and will remain unearthed until you say so. Jazzpunk invites you to get involved in the comedy and, in many ways, become the butt of the joke. Funnily enough, there actually is a butt joke in there.
Jazzpunk doesn't aspire to be an excellent shooter or platformer. Instead, it aspires to and succeeds in having a great conversation with the player.
Jazzpunk is uniquely ridiculous and undeniably hilarious. It's not afraid of making you work to find all the funny, which turns even the tiniest throwaway joke into something special.
Computer games can be funny!
As a "game" Jazzpunk could be completed in less than an hour, but running through to complete the story would be missing most of what makes it so enjoyable. The game (and its achievements) are structured in a way that encourage players to wander around and see everything there is. Even having completed the game I'll be going back through it again, just to catch some of the things I missed.
Perhaps I don't need to tell you that this game made me laugh - not gently or under duress of slow realisation, but in staccato outbursts which alarmed and unsettled passers-by.
Stylish, inventive and easily one of the funniest games in years. Jazzpunk just wants to make you laugh. Don't worry, it will.
Necrophone Games does interactive comedy right in Jazzpunk, a surreal adventure in which the laughter is its own reward.
Jazzpunk is beautiful, beguiling nonsense.
Jazzpunk ends with an unconventional boss fight culminating in an excellent subversion of boss-battle tropes. If the whole game were as smart as the final confrontation, it'd be a much easier recommendation. As it stands, I still don't know whether its worst jokes are intentionally bad or not.
When all's said and done, that's a fantastic way to take a break from reality for a couple of hours. For all my gripes, I'll be surprised if any other game this year makes me laugh as much as Jazzpunk did.
Jokes fly at the player like angry hornets from the hive, hinging on intimate knowledge of games like Warcraft II or Quake, and the references swarm and sting. There are more than enough punchlines, but there's too little setup.
In many respects, Jazzpunk's systems are unremarkable. Its puzzles are rudimentary, its interactions mostly basic and its tasks are often wilfully mundane. At times, it attempts jokes that miss their target, sometimes by a distance. And yet such is its fearless, relentless commitment to amusing you and surprising you that you'll know something better – or perhaps just something weirder – is just around the corner. Anarchic, baffling, sometimes downright silly, and often inspired, Jazzpunk works tirelessly to make you laugh and gasp. The frequency with which you'll do both is a testament to a bold new talent, and Necrophone Games deserves all the plaudits that will be thrown its way in the coming weeks.